GT500 is still the domain of TGR Team au TOM’S after Qualifying for Sunday’s opening round of the Autobacs SUPER GT Series from Okayama International Circuit.
Two-time and defending GT500 champion Sho Tsuboi and his new team-mate Kenta Yamashita won the pole aboard the #36 au TOM’S Toyota GR Supra, sharing the honours after the first qualifying format to be run under the new two-stage aggregate qualifying system.
After much frustration since the system was announced in February, the new format underwent its first proper test – aided by new television graphics to allow fans to track the real-time results on screen, and featuring quite a bit of action as teams deployed different strategies to attack with just a single set of dry-weather tyres.
Yamashita recorded the fifth-best time in Q1, finishing within three-tenths of NISMO’s Katsumasa Chiyo for the best time in the session. But Tsuboi saved the day for his team-mate in Q2 with the quickest time on used tyres. The combined time of 2:35.561 for Tsuboi and Yamashita was enough to win the pole position and secure three valuable championship points ahead of tomorrow’s 82-lap sprint race.
“We owe this to Tsuboi-san,” Yamashita said after the Qualifying session. “It was tough running in Q1, I felt I had held the team back. It was amazing the way Tsuboi-san recovered that three-tenths gap.”
Tsuboi had a frightening moment exiting the first corner on his flying lap when he nearly spun out, but he was able to keep his composure. “Honestly, I thought it was all over! It was a mistake that should have made us lose pole position, so after that, I was really upset,” he said.
“But the condition of the car was extremely good, and we had gotten good times in the morning practice, so I pulled myself together and was able to get a fairly good time. And with our combined times, we also got pole position. So, it was the best result we could have hoped for.”
Toyota locked out the front row as the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Yuichi Nakayama) qualified a strong second, just two-tenths behind and one of only two cars whose drivers each set times under 1:18s. Sekiguchi and Nakayama scored two championship points for qualifying second, and the #100 Stanley Honda Civic Type-R GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino got one point for qualifying third.
Yamamoto and Makino will start the highest among the five new Civic Type R-GTs, though Toyota teams would take up four of the top five places, continuing a trend of strength shown in pre-season testing.
The fastest of the Nissan Z NISMO GT500s was the #23 Motul Autech Z (Katsumasa Chiyo/Ronnie Quintarelli), in sixth. Chiyo recorded the fastest time in Q1 but Quintarelli finished over a second back of Tsuboi in Q2, resulting in a five-place drop for the flagship NISMO car.
Only one GT500 car failed to set a representative time in both sessions – that was the #8 ARTA Mugen Civic Type R-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Nobuharu Matsushita), which will start from pit lane tomorrow after Matsushita ran wide into the grass and sand at the final two corners of his Q1 time attack. It was a difficult break that followed a spin for Nojiri in the final minutes of Practice that morning.
The other 11 Bridgestone-clad GT500 cars locked out the top 11 places, with the best of the rest being the Yokohama-clad #24 Realize Corporation Advan Z (Tsugio Matsuda/Teppei Natori) down in 12th, 1.8 seconds off the pole.
In GT300, the #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 of local hero Naoya Gamou and co-driver Takuro Shinohara won the pole position, their second straight year where they’ve started on pole at Okayama.
The difference between first and second place was just 0.067 seconds even when calculating two flying laps. Bridgestone teams locked out the front row with the Mercedes GT3 alongside the GTA-GT300 #2 muta Racing Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira) taking second place on the grid.
“Until now, in Q1 I felt that it was enough to be able to get to Q2, but this time I felt that I had to do my best to get a good time,” Shinohara said afterwards. “So, this time I felt more pressure than before.”
Gamou offered his insight on running in qualifying on a used set of tyres: “There didn’t seem to be much in terms of a loss in tyre grip, so I was able to run with a good feeling. I’m glad that I was able to get a good time,” he said.
The #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi) recorded the fastest time in Practice and in Q1 – then qualified third to gain a championship point. In fourth place was Morio Nitta and Shinichi Takagi driving for Okayama-based K-tunes Racing in the #96 Lexus RC F – putting two Dunlop runners on the second row.
In fifth was the #7 Studie BMW M4 GT3 (Seiji Ara/Niklas Krütten) which was the best of the Michelin teams, then the #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) which was the best of the Yokohama runners. The fastest new model was the #6 Uni-Robo Bluegrass Ferrari 296 GT3 (Yoshiaki Katayama/Roberto Merhi) in seventh, ahead of the reigning GT300 champion #52 Green Brave Toyota GR Supra (Hiroki Yoshida/Seita Nonaka) in eighth.
Frustratingly, the #777 D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii/Marco Sørensen) had a mechanical issue during Practice in the morning and could not be repaired in time for the car to go out in Qualifying – so the car will start from pit lane in its GT300 debut.
GT300’s complex qualifying system ended up having its benefits and allowed the #9 Pacific VSpo NAC AMG (Ryohei Sakaguchi/Yusuke Tomibayashi) to move up to 13th on the grid despite missing out on a Q2 “Upper 16” place, thanks to the “special position change rule” which covers the top four cars in the “Lower 17” bottom split and the last four in the top split.
The Okayama GT 300km Race starts at 13:30 JST (local time).
Feature image © GTA
